by the usual immaturity of youth. The poems, produced in the following years, eapecially those 'On the Mount's Bay' and 'St. Michael's Mount,' are pleasingly descriptive verses, showing sensibility, but no true poetic imagination. Davy soon abandoned poetry for science. While writing verses at the age of seventeen in honour of his first love, he was eagerly discussing with his quaker friend the question of the materiality of heat. Dunkin
once remarked : 'I tell thee what, Humphry, thou art the most quibbling hand at a dispute I ever met with in my life.' One winter day he took Dunkin to Larigan river, to show him that the rubbing of two plates of ice together developed sufficient heat by motion to melt them, and that the motion being suspended the pieces were united by regelation. This was, in a rude form, the elementary experiment of an analogous one exhibited in later years by Davy in the lecture-room of the Royal Institution, which excited considerable attention.
Davies Giddy, afterwards Gilbert [q. v.], accidentally saw Davy in Penzance. The lad was carelessly swinging on the half-gate of Dr. Dorlase's house. Gilbert was interested by the lad's talk, offered him the use of his library, and invited him to his house at Tredrea. This led to an introduction to Dr. Edwards, who then resided at Hayle Copper House, and was also chemical lecturer in the school of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. Dr. Edwards permitted Davy to use the apparatus in his laboratory, and appears to have directed his attention to the floodgates of the port of Hayle, which were rapidly decaying from the contact of copper and iron under the influence of sea-water. This galvanic action was not then understood, hut the phenomenon prepared the mind of Davy for his experiments on the copper shrathing of ships in later days. Gregory Watt, the son of James Watt, visited Penzance for his health's sake, and lodging at Mrs. Davy's house became a friend of her son and gave him instructions in chemistry. Davy also formed a useful acquaintance with the Wedgwoods, who spent a winter at Penzance.
Dr. Beddoes and Professor Hailstone were engaged in a geological controversy upon the rival merits of the Plutonian and the Neptunist hypotheses. They travelled together to examine the Cornish coast accompanied by Davies Gilbert, and thus made Davy's acquaintance. Beddoes, who had recently established at Bristol a 'Pneumatic Institution,' required an assistant to superintend the laboratory. (Gilbert recommended Davy for the post, and Gregory Watt placed (in April 1798) in the hands of Beddoes the 'Young man's Researches on Heat and Light,' which were subsequently published by him in the first volume of 'West-Country Contributions.' Prolonged negotiations were carried on, mainly by Gilbert. Mrs. Davy and Borlase consented to Davy's departure, but Tonkin desired to fix him in his native town as a surgeon, and actually altered his will when he found that Davy insisted on going to Dr. Beddoes. On 2 Oct. 1798 Davy joined the 'Pneumatic Institution' at Bristol. This institution was established for the purpose of investigating the medical powers of factitious airs and gases, and to Davy was committed the superintendence of the various experiments. The arrangement concluded between Dr. Beddoes and Davy was a liberal one, and enabled Davy to give up all claims upon his paternal property in favour of his mother. He did not intend to abandon the profession of medicine, being still determined to study and graduate at Edinburgh. He, however, soon found his whole energies absorbed in the labours of the laboratory. During his residence at Bristol Dayy formed the acquaintance of the Earl of Durham, who became a resident for his health in the Pneumatic Institution, and of Coleridge and Southey. In December 1799 he visited London for the first time, and his circle of friends was there much extended.
In this year the first volume of the 'West-Country Collections' was issued. Half of the volume consisted of Davy's essays 'On Heat, Light, and the Combinations of Light,' ' On Phos-oxygen and its Combinations,' and on the 'Theory of Respiration.' On 22 Feb. 1799 Davy, writing to Davies Gilbert, says: 'I am now as much convinced of the non-existence of caloric as I am of the existence of light.' In another letter written to Davies Gilbert on 10 April he informs him : 'I made a discovery yesterday which proves how necessary it is to repeat experiments. The gaseous oxide of azote (the laughing gas) is perfectly respirable when pure. It is never deleterious but when it contains nitrous gas. I have found a mode of making it pure.' He then says that he breathed sixteen quarts of it for nearly seven minutes, and that it 'absolutely intoxicated me.' During this year Davy published his 'Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, chiefly concerning Nitrous Oxide and its Respiration.' In after years Davy regretted that he had ever published these immature hypotheses, which he himself subsequently designates as 'the dreams of misemployed genius which the light of experiment and observation has never conducted to truth.'
In 1800 Davy informed Davies Gilbert that
